The Style Box just put up a great post about Fashion Week etiquette.
Great little blog posting.  For those who are trying to navigate this wonderful world of the Style Industry (of which the Fashion Industry is a part of) should definitely give it a gander.  

A couple of points in the posting I want to illustrate and fully agree with : 

I feel (Toronto Fashion Week) should be strictly a trade event – especially when most people are there to work.. 
 

The majority of public attending the shows respect that, but some public don’t take that into consideration: they steal seats, fill up space in the already crammed tents, complain about the shows being “so short”, and generally just get in the way.

She also posts these great ‘Ten Fashion Commandents”
My favourite :  ’Thou shall dress to impress.’

These commandments are great as they also illustrate the strictness of the Fashion Industry. They have a very specific set of rules and way of doing things that they feel must be adhered to.   The fact is that these rules makes sense in New York or Paris or Milan.  

In Toronto, it’s a bit different.

Most of the afternoon shows are generally empty.  The overcrowding and craziness tend to happen (and rightfully so) in the later evening shows with some of the more established designers (David Dixon, bustle, etc) and these shows tend to be big PR initiatives as opposed to sales exercises as there aren’t any big buyers at the event throughout the week as most budgets are already accounted for and sales are already made from the bigger more relevant Fashion Weeks.

I have walked into the tents (and Liberty Grand) every year without any real trouble and stayed throughout the whole evening catching six maybe seven shows. I can tell you, etiquette is not the issue, relevance is.  

What designers need is a viable sales channel, not a hoped-for one.  I have mentioned this many times before, Canada has one big retailer and a great network of small retailers as well as a few traditional media.  Nothing like the major Fashion Weeks in the world.  What we do have is 2 million of the smartest and most well-informed consumer base in North America, one of the first great network of non-traditional media made up of bloggers and (now) twitterers.

Until the Toronto Week of Style was created, they weren’t being tapped into. Why is that?  

Leadership.

The Toronto Week of Style has been successful on many levels (of which I will post about another day), one of the main points of success is that consumers are now being looked at across this country and slowly in various points across the world.

By relaxing the rules a little bit and looking at things differently, there might just be a way of achieving what we are all looking to do – provide Canadian Designers of the Style Industry their place at the global table.

That’s what we have done at the Toronto Week of Style.

That’s why we don’t need Commandents.

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I just wanted to put up a quick post on how glad that I am that I am living in Toronto right now..
there are all kinds of fantastic things going on in the style industry…

I just read the other day that Alternative Fashion Week [FAT] has booked itself for next April, that’s fantastic cause they are definitely doing great things and are needed; regardless of your opinion of the FDCC, Toronto Fashion Week has people talking..(good and bad) about Canadian Fashion more than it has been for a few years, (in spite of that ridiculous Group of Seven marketing campaign that some genius came up with); the TFI just got it’s new home; we have a network of bloggers reporting on the style industry with honesty, integrity and opinions that actually help us, not hinder, (there are some morons however…watcha gonna do); the Bay partnered up with Anokhi Magazine to sell a pretty cool fashion line; and we are obviously doing our thing…I am happy to say that there is literally a long list…..

did I miss anything?

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